Inside the Mind of Peter Pettigrew
by Sirius Revenge
Summary: Peter decides to stand up for himself. Just a little bit. He's been mocked constantly, and he's a bit annoyed.


A/N: I should be writing one of my other stories, but I'm not. I wrote this instead. Sorry. Enjoy!

Inside the Mind of Peter Pettigrew

Sirius Revenge

You hate me. I know.

How could I not know? I see you all, and all your fancy stories of James and Sirius and Remus. But where is Peter? Oh, he's somewhere in the background, being a nasty little piece of shit, just like everyone expects him to be. Of course. Coward, sneak, stupid, fat, ungrateful, unworthy of life.

Maybe I don't have the right to be offended by your stories, but I am. You all didn't know me. How could you know? We were such great friends - the four of us. How do you think I became an animagus? How do you think I became their friend at all? Why do you think James used me as his secret-keeper?

I became an animagus at 15 years old. That was no small feat. Sirius was right - I needed help. So did they. Not one of us would have become animagi without the help of the others. Sirius and James were brilliant, and everyone knew it. Remus was studious, quiet, calm - the good one. Me? I was average, maybe a little above average. It's true that some people thought I was stupid, and it did seem that way sometimes, standing next to my friends. Did you listen carefully is your "Azkaban" book? Do you remember what Professor McGonagall said about me? No, I don't think you do. You think she said I was stupid, don't you? Well, you're wrong. She said, and I quote, "Never quite in their league, talent-wise." She was right, of course, I _wasn't _in their league. Who was? I'm willing to bet you weren't. They were smart. They were talented. They were geniuses, and they knew it. I was normal, and in their shadow, I felt stupid.

Who did you listen to? Sirius? You don't think he may have been the tiniest bit biased against me? Remus? No. He didn't say anything about me. Not a word. Harry? Well, he didn't know me any better than you do.

I was bitter. Yes, I admit that. I was jealous of their talent, and bitter because I didn't have any of it. No matter what I could do well, they always did it better. I couldn't live up to them. So why did I stay with them, you ask? Why were we friends at all? They were wonderful. They were nice. They treated me kindly, and with respect, and I returned it fully, and more so, for all their talents. Yes, I admired James's talents in Quidditch, and all sports. I had no talent in these areas - I was a lazy child. Then again, Remus had no talent in those areas, either, and there was no skinnier child to be found. I don't think it was wrong of me to show my appreciation for his talents - he loved it, and I never cared what anyone else thought of me, except for my three friends.

I think I was a good friend. I couldn't offer any skill they didn't already have - they were smarter and more talented, always. Still, I did what I could, and mostly, I listened. How wonderful it is to have someone listen to you - to understand how you feel, how you think. James's worries were usually shallow - feelings of lust toward Lily, which she would not return. Other times, after talking about stupid stuff, James would turn serious. He told me his fears for his family, for his own future, for his friends. He worried so much over Sirius and Remus. Sirius's home life was unstable and dangerous. James worried his mother would cross the line and really hurt him, bad. Remus's life in general was always tough. Every full moon, Remus would seem to grow more pale, more sickly. He seemed to be wearing away in front of us, and James worried about the normal life span for werewolves (10-15 years: Remus had been a werewolf for 13 when James first mentioned it).

Sirius, too, would worry over Remus. I did it, myself - anyone who cared for him did. Sirius worried for his brother, Regulus, who bought into everything their parents had told him, whom Sirius worried might take the wrong side of the war. He also worried what his mother would do to Regulus, if Sirius wasn't there for her to vent frustrations on.

Remus worried over things that would make you laugh, when compared to Remus's own troubles. He worried that James was trying to ask out Lily again, and he was going to be angry and hurt that evening. He worried that Sirius didn't seem to be eating enough, lately. He worried that I was too quiet, lately. Rarely would he truly open up to me, and you'd know when he did. He worried for Sirius's home life. He worried for his father, who was an auror, caught in the war. He worried for his mother, whom he hadn't seen since the previous summer. His parents were separated - his squib mother couldn't handle a werewolf, but Remus reassured them that she still cared deeply for him. Only once did Remus worry over himself. Sometimes, it was scary when my friends opened up to me, but this was the worst. You know the situation. Sirius pulled a "prank" on Snape, and nearly got Remus to kill him. After an hour of worrying about what could have happened, Remus went quiet.

"I don't want to ever do something like that again," he said. "I don't want to hurt anyone. I see why people think I'm dangerous. Why I don't deserve to live."

What scared me most was how Remus had said it. He didn't say he saw why certain people didn't think he deserved to live. He said he saw why he didn't deserve to live. I was scared, forever after that. The next few days, I wouldn't allow Remus to leave my sight, so frightened I was that he would hurt himself.

In the end, he didn't do anything. I was glad for that - really. But I was still angry. Listening was the only thing I could do for my friends, but Remus didn't go to me again - he went to Sirius. And Sirius, who never shuts up, not only listened, but actually seemed to help. Remus grew happier, less tired, less pale. He was still sick as ever, don't get me wrong, but he had so much more life, and it had nothing to do with me. It was all Sirius.

Sirius had taken from me the one thing that I could offer Remus. Shortly after, James and Lily married, and James took his worries to Lily. Again, Lily took the only thing I could offer James. And, as I became more irritable, more angry, I didn't listen as well, and Sirius went to James or Remus instead. Now, I had nothing to offer my friends. It's true, I was angry, I was jealous, I was hurt, and I wanted revenge.

So I told them.

I told them how worthless I felt, how weak and petty. And they responded as true friends do. They gave me what I wanted, and began to trust me with secrets and problems and worries again. But the war had changed them all.

James worried for his wife, and unborn child. He worried for his friends, for all of us, and hoped that we would all make it through, together. Sirius worried much the same. But he also trusted in me a few concerns about Remus. They shared a flat together. Remus came home late, looked pale and depressed all the time. Remus had confided in Sirius that he was struggling. Remus really was a dark creature, and we all knew that. The Dark Lord wanted Remus to join him, and Remus was feeling the pressure. Remus worried for silly things for a while, then confided a few secret chance meetings with Death Eaters, and the internal temptation to join them.

After a few weeks, their earnest to trust their secrets in me faded. One of the last was James confiding that he had met the Dark Lord three times. On the evening of the third, James came to me and explained that the Dark Lord had tried recruiting him and Lily three times. Since they had refused, he would kill them.

When I met the Dark Lord, he gave me the same warning.

The third time I met him, I agreed to help him.

I'm not strong. I'm not brave enough to stand up to the Dark Lord completely. I did it, twice, but I know he knew I wouldn't the third time. I knew it, too. And I wished for all the world that I would have someone to confide in, as James had. But I had no one. All the sudden, it seemed to me that they were only concerned about themselves. They no longer seriously asked how I was, or what had been happening in my life. It was the baby is a boy, Lily's won't eat anything cooked with magic, James is anxious, and jumps whenever Lily makes a sudden movement, Remus moved out of Sirius's flat.

I fed the Dark Lord tiny bits of truth, with mostly lies, even though he always knew. I didn't want to betray my friends, but the deeper I got in the Dark Lord's ranks, the more I came to realize that they didn't care about me. They had their own worries, and their own lives, and all I had had was them. But now, I had the Dark Lord. My information gradually became more truthful, more useful. I slowly became loyal to the Dark Lord, before I even realized what had happened.

He tricked me. I know that, now. He manipulated my feelings of inadequacy and my fear of being left out. Looking back, I know that nothing had really changed about how my friends felt about me. They talked about themselves to me because that was what I had wanted. I know that, if I had gone to them with my problems, they would have listened and helped. I wish I had. I wish things could go back to how they were, and we could all be friends again. But we can't.

Soon, it became obvious that someone in our group was a spy. I had to be more careful, and James and Sirius were always watching. I was scared that they would find out about me, scared they would abandon me forever. I didn't want them to leave. I still wanted to be friends with them, but I felt like they were pushing me away. To hide my own guilt, I began to carefully drop mentions of Remus's previous troubles with the Death Eaters. Remus had moved out of Sirius's flat, and didn't tell us where he had moved to. As a Death Eater, I soon knew where he was staying, which was no where at all. And I was careful to guard Remus's secret from my other friends, who were now constantly watching Remus.

You know the rest. I never wanted to be Secret-Keeper, that was Sirius's idea. James trusted me. Do you realize that? He trusted me with his life, and with the life of his wife. The life of his son. And he trusted me on Sirius's word. Do you even understand what that means? There were only three choices for the traitor. It had to be me, Sirius, or Remus. If James trusted both Sirius and myself, then he must have been convinced that Remus was guilty. He must have been absolutely convinced, to trust me with his family. But I was so angry by that point, I couldn't hide it. I knew what it meant, when I told James's family's secret. I knew that it would mean the end of Lily and James, and the end of Harry. I knew that, with Harry dead (and Neville shortly after), there would be no way for anyone to stop my Lord. And by that point, I wanted that.

I wanted my friends to disappear. With Lily and James gone, I went after Sirius. Even though I now regret it, I did a fine job of framing him. Sirius, I reasoned, was why I had lost my friends in the first place, and I wanted him to suffer. And he did, more so than he ever deserved. As Remus had acted as my decoy, I did not go after him. I had watched him decaying and dying for years, and knew he wouldn't live long. He'd been a werewolf for 17 years, and he had no friends left as animagi to help him through his transformations. It was this that I had accredited his longer-than-usual life. James was dead, Sirius was in Azkaban, and Remus would die shortly. My Lord was gone, and I was free of him, but the Death Eaters were angry with me. Neville and Harry were both still alive, but with the Lord gone, I felt no concern about that. I went to hide from the other Death Eaters, figuring I could turn up mysteriously, once everything had died down.

And what a comfortable life it was, living with the Weasleys. No troubles, no worries, no job, no Dark Lord, just an owner, food, sleep, and the occasional twin trying to scare their brothers. I had nothing to worry about.

No one expected Sirius to escape.

No one expected Remus to live 14 years after his expected life span, with no signs of stopping there.

And my God, they were pissed at me.

How could I have expected that? My plan was perfect! But my friends broke all the rules. They always did. Dumbledore told me that people cannot be brought back to life, but he also told me Remus would die before 19, and that no one ever broke out of Azkaban. I'm just praying now, here in my Lord's new lair, that James doesn't crawl out of the ground.

A/N: My brother is a genius. I am not. It is extraordinarily difficult to live in his shadow. I can understand how Peter would feel in this situation, as I feel the same way. Except, I love my brother, and will never, ever do anything to get him killed, no matter how smart he is. But really, no matter how smart I am, it doesn't matter, because he always does better than me, and that's rough. Because of this, it irritates me when people mock Peter, calling him stupid and cowardly and what-not. He might be a coward, but there is no indication at all that he's stupid.

/end rant

Well, I hope you enjoyed it. I'm trying to change people's minds a little bit about Peter. He may still be scum, but that doesn't mean he's an idiot. Thank you.


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